


Raven and the Robins

by Devilinureye



Category: Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020), Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016), Teen Titans - All Media Types, Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (2017)
Genre: DamiRae - Freeform, Demonbirds - Freeform, F/M, Inspired in Julie and the Phantoms, oh my god i'm in love with a ghost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27370936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilinureye/pseuds/Devilinureye
Summary: Raven was going to her first live performance with her mother when a car accident changed her life completely. After waking up in a hospital bed 1 week later, she needs to try to get her life back to normal and overcome her mother's death in the fateful accident,  while dealing with new powers that she didn't know she had.She thinks that nothing will ever return to normal again and that her love for music ended until she met 3 boys from an emerging Gotham band, the Robins.But there is a problem, they are dead.(Based on Julie and the Phantoms from Netflix)
Relationships: Raven/Damian Wayne
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	1. Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> And I want to believe you  
> When you tell me that it'll be okay  
> Yeah, I try to believe you  
> But I don't  
> When you say that it's gonna be  
> It always turns out to be a different way  
> I try to believe you  
> Not today, today, today, today, today
> 
> (Tomorrow - Avril Lavigne)

\- "Raven! We're late!"

\- "I'm on my way, Mom." - Raven shouted from the top of the stairs as she adjusted her uniform. She tried to go over the letter in her head while struggling against the buttons on her coat with shaking hands. Why had Dinah chosen those jackets with giant buttons for the presentation? Wasn't the nervousness she would have when singing for the whole school enough?

Raven sighed nervously, giving up buttoning only to find her mother leaning against the doorframe with a smile on her lips. She walked slowly over to Raven and with all the maternal care she could, she buttoned each shiny coat button, then straightened Raven's strands of hair that were out of place.

\- "You look so beautiful." - She smiled, squeezing the tip of Raven's nose with her fingertips - "Like a star... My little shiny star."

\- "Mom..."

\- "What?" - She smiled - "I'm not telling any lies, you look as beautiful as a star. The brightest of all."

\- "You think?"

\- "Of course, you are my daughter." - Angela took Raven's arms and turned her to the mirror, resting her head on the girl's shoulder - "And you will shine today as you should." - She held out her hand for Raven to hold and she held it as hard as when she was a child and was afraid of something.

Angela was her rock, her safe haven and Raven learned during her 16 years that her biggest supporter would be her mother and vice versa. From the beginning it was only two of them and it would only be two forever. Raven never knew her father, she didn't even know his name or where to find him. The only information she had was what her mother had told her years ago when she asked about it. He was a magician that her mother met one night in Las Vegas and after one night, she never saw him again. The only thing Angela said was that he was gone and had been dead since Raven was born.

She also made Raven promise to never look for him

Raven didn't understand it at first, but now she just knew it was a way for her mother to protect her. He was a magician and Angela's pregnancy was an accident. He would never recognize her as a daughter and Angela, with the help of Raven's godparents, Lois Lane and Clark Kent, had raised the girl without needing a father.

And Raven was grateful to have a strong mother like Angela as an example. She didn't mind getting into 5 jobs every day if it was necessary so that nothing was missing for Raven and now, she was reaping the rewards of running a small CD and Vinyl store in Gotham. The favorite place in Raven's world. An inheritance from a good woman who considered Angela as the daughter she could never have and it was there that Raven had spent most of her childhood and preadolescence.

\- "Nervous?" - Angela said smiling, while starting the car, after forcing Raven to put on the seat belt.

\- "A little." - Raven groaned with a thin smile and rubbed her hands.

\- "Will that boy be there? What is his name? Joseph isn't it?"

\- "What? Mom!"

\- "What?" - She laughed - "It's normal for you to have a crush on boys your age, my dear. And it's normal to feel nervous about it."

\- "I-I don't have a crush on anyone and... I'm just a little nervous."

\- "Okay." - She laughed. - "You will do perfectly well, dear. The stage is in your blood and as I said, you are a star. And today you will shine more than a comet."

\- "What if I'm not good enough?"

\- "You are good enough, my love. You always have to keep in mind that you are good enough or the insecurity will consume you and swallow you up. You have so much to show the world, so just show it."

\- "I... I'm just afraid." - Raven put her hands on her face - "What if I fail? What if I forget the lyrics?"

\- "You rehearsed and you have the voice of an angel. And if you fail, well... even the biggest stars fail, you're just being human."

\- "I wonder if my father ever failed." - Raven murmured looking at her hands, before seeing Angela swallow, without looking at her daughter.

\- "Most likely."

\- "He would consider me a failure, wouldn't he Mom?"

\- "He would be a fool if he did that."

\- "I'm a mistake, mom. You know I am."

\- "Your father could be many things, Raven... But he wasn't stupid. He wouldn't see you as a failure, he would surely find your potential and suck it up until there is nothing left. So I hid you from him, so I don't want you to go looking for him. You don't need him, my little one. You never needed him."

\- "I know." - She slowly exhaled.- "It will be just the two of us always, I know you will always be here for me as you always have been."

\- "Exactly, I will always be here to protect you, Raven." - She smiled, looking away quickly to caress Raven's cheek - "And I will be with you all the time, in the front row. Today and always, never forget that. Wait, where's your stone?"

\- "Umm, I left it at home, it didn't match with the outfit."

\- "You can't leave it at home, Raven. You know it's your amulet, it was given to you when you were born."

\- "Okay mom! But now it's too late, we're already halfway there."

\- "No, let's go back and you will get your stone. You cannot leave without it."

\- "Okay, Miss Roth! Let's go back and get the fucking stone!"

\- "Language, girl!"

\- "Sorry." - Raven rolled her eyes and smiled.

\- "That stone protects you, you should never be without it. I only do this for you, to protect you because I love you more than anything in this world, never forget that."

\- "I love you too, Mom. Together forever, remember?"

\- "Together forever."

Angela smiled, an open, loving, warm and sincere smile and that was the last time Raven saw her smile.

The last thing Raven heard was a horn and then a flash and then everything went black. She could hear a ringing in her ears and the distant sound of an ambulance siren and muffled voices, but she was unable to move or open her eyes. It didn't hurt or burn, but she knew something had happened.

Had she died? Was she on another astral plane? She couldn't say.

The only thing she thought about was how tired she was and how a nap didn't sound like such a bad idea even though she was still wondering what had happened. Raven murmured something that came out more like a bunch of tangled words before everything went completely dark and since then, her life has magically changed.

Raven woke up in a hospital a week later, with a broken arm and bruises all over her body. There were balloons with _"get well soon"_ messages on the bedside table. There were flowers and stuffed animals on the headboard with countless cards from people she didn't even remember knowing.

Her whole body ached like hell, but nothing hurt more than receiving the news of what had really happened and why she was in a hospital bed. There had been an accident. That night it had rained and the asphalt was wet and slippery, when Angela had gone back home to pick up Raven's amulet, Angela's car skidded around a curve and collided head-on with a bus, being dragged for a few meters before finally stopping. 

Raven had miraculously survived with few injuries, a mild concussion, and an open fracture in her right arm. The doctors had tried to put screws in place, but for some reason her own body did all the work and now she was a cause of curiosity for the entire hospital. 

But her mother hadn't been so lucky, in an attempt to uselessly protect Raven, Angela launched herself hugging the girl and taking all the impact of the car. She had died hours after arriving at the hospital and Raven never even got the chance to say goodbye. Every single thing about Raven hurt, but knowing that her mother had left her was worse than feeling the impact of the bus over and over again. 

The surprise that came afterwards made everything worse. 

Raven had powers. Powers that she didn't even know she had or where they even came from. Powers that her mother hid from Raven her entire life. Powers that had she known how to control they somehow could have saved her and her mother. But because she had never known of these powers and had no control over them, they instinctively only protected and saved Raven inside the crashed car. 

She almost destroyed the hospital when she learned that she was now alone and that she hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to her mother. The rock of Ravens' life, the only person who was there for her from her first steps to her mother's last breath. he only thing that prevented Raven from knocking everything over onto the floor was being held by some nurses and Clark Kent and being sedated again to try to make her wake up calmer later. 

She didn't know how, but when Raven had lost control, she saw red and something like a dark mass came out at her command. It hurled everything and everyone who approached her backwards before a doctor finally managed to inject a huge needle into her arm and she completely blacked out again. 

When Raven woke up again 4 days later, she had hoped it was just a goddamn nightmare she was living in. But as her eyes got used to the light, she noticed that she was still in the same room with the same mint-colored wallpaper, wrapped in a white and green blanket. The same cards, flowers and balloons were near her bed starting to wilt and her body still had abrasions that were now beginning to have a slight yellowish or scarred tone. 

Her arm was just supported by a band and things didn't hurt as much as it did when she woke up the first time, but she knew that the pain was actually deeper than what her outer appearance looked like. Her pain was emotional as well as physical. 

It was like an open and burning wound and the flashes of the accident were as if she was torturing herself. Opening that wound over and over, until she couldn't take it anymore and wanted to scream. Something was bubbling up within her like boiling water begging to get out, asking to rip her skin open and get a hold of her. 

She took a deep breath, her mind an endless mess as she tried to fit the pieces together. 

She could feel everything and everyone for some reason, and her eyes burned like flames from hell. A reddish hue was beginning to cover her skin as pale as marble and she didn't know how to avoid it and there was a throbbing pain in her forehead like something wanting to split her head in the middle and leave. 

She pushed that pain in down again. She knew that things were wrong and that certainly an open fracture would not heal in a matter of days. That she would probably be the object of desire for doctors there and that the moment they started to study her like that, she would be doomed to be sedated forever and could never say goodbye to her mother. 

Say goodbye to Angela. 

Raven stopped fighting herself for a long minute, reality hitting her like the bus again. Angela had left her forever and now she was alone in the world at just 16 years old. She was just a girl, an orphan and without a family and would probably be thrown into the system to be forgotten. 

She would never wake up to her mother's pancakes again, nor to her smile when Raven asked her to take her to school or when she asked Raven about the boys. Raven wouldn't see her with her long black hair in the middle of a bunch of CDs and telling her not to listen to music on the last volume or her eardrums would explode. 

The pain gave way to a feeling of numbness and for a while. Raven stared at nothing as her body seemed to go into a trance and the new powers she didn't know existed in her began to withdraw. She was alone. She had no one. 

And all because of a damn red diamond-shaped stone that Raven carried around her neck. 

Angela's last sentence echoed in her mind _"together forever"_ and Raven felt her eyes burn, but this time it was different. It was resentful and angry tears breaking the barriers that had risen in her while she was fighting that thing that wanted to take her over. 

And before she could control it, a cry came from her lips. It was a cry of pain, as if she was being cut again and again and again. The window glass cracked and shattered completely. Crows began to fly from everywhere in the direction of the hospital and land on the window forming a dark and massive cloud of feathers over the bedroom window. Car alarms in the parking lot started by themselves, lights from all over the block blinked and went out like a sudden power outage and the asphalt of the parking lot opened up with a big and dangerous crack. 

A task force of at least 10 nurses entered the room ready to deal with yet another rage attack from Raven, but what they found was just a girl sitting hugging herself as angry tears streamed down her face. She could feel the confusion in some nurses and the fear in others. She could feel everything in there and it started to affect her, until Clark and Lois came in and the looks they gave her told her that everything would be okay. 

She knew she wouldn't be. 

An eternity passed until one of them took her in his arms and let her cry at ease. Lois stroked her hair while Raven clung to Clark's shirt hard enough to dig her nails into the fabric. They gave the nurses a signal that she would be fine and as soon as it was just the three of them, they let Raven cry for as long as needed, her tears wetting her godfather's shirt. 

Raven didn't know she could cry so much, but when she finally seemed to stop, her tears just dried up and she moved away, feeling the wound still open but the weight on her back a little lighter. 

Angela always said that crying was good and washed the soul, but that anger wasn't a good thing to carry. Now all the anger management lessons seemed much clearer to her and for a brief, very brief moment, Raven started to wonder what she really was and what that thing was inside her, crying out and scratching her skin inside. 

Raven looked at her own hands now, in her usual pale and clean tone. She couldn't be going crazy, her skin was getting reddish minutes before. Lois was still stroking Raven's hair when a frown of concern grew on her brow as she saw the girl examining herself, as if looking for a flaw in her that hadn't been there before. 

Another burst of energy from her and that hospital would crumble to the ground. 

When she noticed the worried eyes on her, she just took a deep breath and wiped her face, pushing any pain back inside. If there was a feeling that Raven didn't like, it was pity. People feeling sorry for her was something she didn't want to face and she hoped not to have to face it. 

And she knew that if she started to let the pain take her, people would look at her with exactly that look. 

_"Poor little orphan girl"_ was what she read on her features and she didn't want to feel it. She didn't want their pity, she didn't want their feelings, she didn't want their _'I'm sorry'._

Nothing like that would bring her mother back. 

Nothing in the world would bring her mother back. 

Clark and Lois spent a long 3 hours talking about what had happened since the night of the accident with Raven., Explaining that the social worker had tried to find a close relative so that she could take care of her from now on and that they had volunteered for it, since her mother's closest relative was an aunt from across the country who didn't know about Raven and they didn't think so many changes now would be good for her. 

Raven didn't say much, her head was a heap of things that she couldn't quite silence. She was alone in the world and she had powers, powers strong enough to break things and heal herself. Powers that saved her from possibly having the same fate as her mother. Powers that could have saved Angela if she had known of their existence. 

She felt the guilt fill her chest and it wanted to swallow her. Knowing that she could have avoided all that with those powers only filled her with guilt that she couldn't control and then, Raven felt poisoned. 

Going to the Kent home didn't help in any way to end the poison that ran through her veins since the day she woke up in the hospital bed. Each day she closed herself off more and more and more. Raven felt that sensation bubbling inside her again and a mixture of anger and pain poisoned her a little bit more each day. She woke up in the middle of the night screaming for her mother in a cold sweat and with images of a man with long white hair laughing out loud, chasing her when she went back to sleep. 

Clark and Lois forced Raven to go to therapy and attend support groups for people who lost loved ones in accidents. She knew they were trying to do the best for her, but each time they made her go to therapy, the more angry she got. And when she got angry, she heard those voices telling her what she should really do. She couldn't tell the therapist that she was hearing voices and therefore, she felt alone. 

Having to deal with those whispers alone. 

6 months passed before the first incident happened. Irritated by everyone's overprotection, Raven's anger exploded and she saw red again as she had in the hospital. It must have been the fourth time she was asked about the therapy session and if she was making any progress and she couldn't take it anymore. It was like they wanted her to break at any moment, it was so extremely annoying. Her fingers started to turn red and her eyes, furious, were on fire. With a glance, the glasses and plates on the table broke and flew directly towards Clark ready to silence him, but Raven came back to herself before the shards hit him and ordered them to fall to the floor before running for her new room and locking the door with a wave of her hand. 

She was still scared of this power she possessed and she still didn't know where it came from because her mother had never told her about them and therefore never trained her for it. But she had been training with small things during the day when they weren't asking her for the thousandth time how she was feeling. The last time, she got a small ball of purple energy in both hands before feeling a strong headache and that cold, chilling laugh that made all the hair on her arm stand up. It scared her again and she lost her concentration. 

Raven heard Jon's voice ask why she was mad and heard Clark walk out the front door, she could feel their fear and frustration and could feel the worry in Lois when she left for work right after Clark. Raven just needed space and for them to understand that she wasn't glass and that she wouldn't break. 

And oh god, save her from the _'everything is going to be okay'_ speech, she knew that nothing was going to be okay. She had lost her only family 6 months ago, in an accident that she could have avoided if she knew she had the strength to do so. She hadn't even had the courage to go to her mother's grave or the courage to go to the CD store that her mother took care of. 

Nothing would be okay, nothing would ever be okay and she was willing to learn to live with it, with a hole that Angela left in her chest. 

At the end of the day, Raven was still trapped in her room. Unwilling to go out and confront the shame of having to face the only people who were trying to get her to move on and welcomed her into their home. She knew she was being difficult, she just couldn't control it. She was ready to take a pain pill and try to sleep when she heard three knocks on the door. 

\- "Raven... It's me!" - Lois's voice came from the other side of the lilac door - "Jon told me that you stayed in there all day and didn't come out to eat anything." 

\- "I'm fine, Lois." 

\- "I made you a sandwich and your favorite tea." 

\- "I... I'm already going to sleep." 

\- "You know I won't be leaving until you open that door and talk to me." - Lois said firmly. 

Raven took a deep breath and looked up, the lamp reflecting yellowish stars on the lilac ceiling. She had known Lois Lane since she was a baby and knew how obstinate this woman could be. It was nothing new and it made her a damn good fucking journalist, if she wanted something she would dig to the bottom to get it. And so Raven knew that if Lois wanted to stay at that door planted all night, she would. 

With a defeated sigh, Raven moved her hand and unlocked the door, making no effort to get up. 

\- "Oh... Very well." - Lois raised her eyebrow. - "I see that you already know how to do some little tricks with your new discovery. Where's your stone? Your mother would kill me if she saw you without that red stone" 

\- "I'm fine, you don't have to worry about that." - Raven groaned - "My mother is not here, she will not kill anyone if she sees me without that stupid stone." 

\- "Spare me that speech, Raven. You are not fine and I understand that, but I will not let you starve to death. You are a minor and under my responsibility and that means that you will eat properly 3 meals a day." - Lois rolled her eyes - "And that also means mandatory on your mother's orders, like wearing the stupid necklace you've been wearing since you pooped diapers." 

\- "You left Jon alone all day." 

\- "Jon wasn't alone. You were here, even if you were locked inside this room. I know you wouldn't let anything happen to him, you love that boy." 

\- "Don't exaggerate." 

\- "And tomorrow you go back to school. I don't want you to stop your life, you are young and have a lot to live yet and Dr. Leslie said that you are fine and just need to get back to normal to get used to it." 

\- "I don't think anything will ever return to normal, Lois. Everything is different and there is no doctor Leslie to say otherwise!" - Raven rolled her eyes, looking at the tray Lois placed on her lap. She didn't remember being so hungry until she smelled chamomile tea and her stomach rumbled. 

\- "As I imagined." - She gave a satisfied smile - "You are starving but you are too proud to admit, aren't you?" 

\- "I..." - Raven licked her lower lip, trying to control her saliva - "I was fine." 

\- "Just eat." - Lois said, shaking her head. - "Gods you are as hard headed as your mother!" - She stopped and then her eyes widened and she looked at Raven - "Oh. I'm sorry." 

\- "It's okay... I don't... I won't break just because you talk about... About my mom." 

\- "I know. But I know that you are far from well. That reaction at breakfast today was proof that you are not well and we don't know how to help you." - She took a deep breath and sat on the edge of the bed, afraid of what reaction Raven might trigger. - "You know you can talk to me, Raven. You can talk about anything." - Raven sighed and looked at her hands, feeling things flow and drown her. Her heart weighed on her chest and she felt a tear run down her face before she could help it. 

\- "I'm... I'm sorry, Lois." - She murmured feeling the tears getting stronger and without her being able to avoid all of that weight coming out of her chest - "I never wanted to hurt you, I never wanted to threaten to hurt Clark, but I'm so tired, so scared. I...I want my mom here with me, telling me everything is going to be okay because I'm not ready to be alone." 

\- "Raven..." - Lois crawled on the bed and held Raven's hand tightly. 

\- "I miss my mother so much and... Now I have these powers." - Raven looked at Lois and moved her hand, the energy ball showing in her hand without the slightest effort - "I don't know what to do with them or why my mom didn't tell me about them and I feel so angry! I could have saved her if she had told me about it, if she had let me know what I was and who my father was." 

\- "You can talk to me when you feel like this. In fact you should talk to me. Clark and I just want to get better. It's okay to feel that way. Your mother's departure was something that none of us expected and I know she was doing what she loved to do the most, which was loving and taking care of you." 

\- "Why didn't she tell me about these powers? Why didn't she let me save her?" 

\- "Your mother had her reasons for that." 

\- "I had a right to know." 

\- "Mmm..." - Lois licked her lip and nodded slowly before looking ahead and taking a steady breath - "Do you know how I met your mother? She had just arrived in the city and was with you in her arms. She was scared and she passed me while I was in the middle of my journalistic investigations, you know..." 

\- "And you helped her find a place to stay because you had a small son too and understood the situation, I know." - Raven sighed, wiping tears with the back of her hands - "Mom told me this story a million times." 

\- "Of course she told it." - She smiled - "But... I think you don't know the rest, like for example, because she never wanted you to know about your father." 

\- "My father? She said he was a Las Vegas magician and-" 

\- "He was... Let's say yes, a magician" - Lois made a face, that girl was going through a lot and definitely didn't need to know now that her father was a demon - "But, he was after you, after your powers. Your mother met some people who helped her when she ran from him. She managed to run away by bringing you here. She tried to make you a normal girl and with the help of these people they locked your powers inside you with the help of that stone. You would probably never know about them if it weren't for this traumatic event. Your mother hid your powers for your own sake, to keep your father from finding you." - Lois rubbed Raven's face, wiping away the remaining tears. - "She knew you could save her and everyone around her, but this world is a dangerous place for people like you. She just thought she was doing it right to protect you." 

\- "And now I am alone and not knowing how to control this force inside me. She is not here to protect me. I will have to run away from him alone" 

\- "I'm here, Clark is here. All your friends at school are here." - She smiled, in a motherly and loving way that made Raven's heart ache. - "Everything will be fine, you just need..." 

\- "If you say the 5 stages of grief I will be forced to use that power on you." 

\- "Okay." - Lois laughed sitting next to Raven and pulling her into a hug - "But you know it's what you need. And your mother said something about meditating and about learning to control your emotions and that damn necklace with the stone being something related to helping you concentrate that power you have. Then, as long as you don't vent everything that is in you, apparently they will be able to stabilize these powers and as long as you use that stone, it will be easier for you to concentrate." 

\- "How did you know everything and I didn't?" 

\- "That's why your mother made me your godmother, I'm the only one who knows about you for your own safety. 

\- "This... This is so fucked up." - Raven put her hands on her face. 

\- "Everything will be fine I said." 

\- "I wanted to believe you, but I can't." - Raven took a shaky breath - "But apparently I have no choices and this is driving me crazy. I'm going to have to live with this stupid power, this ridiculous red stone and with this hole in my chest. And I miss my mother." 

\- "You can always vent with me. I'm not your mother and I don't even intend to take her space in your heart but, I can be a friend." - She tapped her finger on the tip of Raven's nose - "We can be a family for you, Raven... You just need to allow it." 

Raven exhaled, looking into Lois Lane's purple eyes and feeling a peace invade her. A peace she hadn't felt since the night of the accident. She knew that things would never be the same and that she would hardly heal the pain of losing Angela, but she felt that in this place, it could be a new beginning. 

_A new family._

She would need time to get used to the idea, to return to being at least a part of who she used to be before. It all depended on just allowing herself and maybe, just maybe she could smile again one day. 

Things would be better in a possible tomorrow. 


	2. Now Or Never

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't look down  
> 'Cause we're still rising  
> Up right now  
> And even if we hit the ground  
> We'll still fly  
> Keep dreaming like we'll live forever  
> But live it like it's now or never
> 
> (Now Or Never - Sunset Curve/Julie and The Phantoms)

**_Metropolis, one year later_ **

Raven tried to go unnoticed by everyone in the crowded corridors of Gotham Academy, it was not difficult since they almost never paid attention to her, unless the cause was of the sick concern they had for her.

She always felt suffocated by people's pitying looks. And it was almost all the time.

A year had passed since Raven suffered an accident that changed her life and made her lose the only person in her family she knew, Angela Roth, her mother. That day, she also discovered that she had inherited powers, a magic that had been dormant within her since she was a baby, hidden from her father.

A magician she never knew, but who apparently would use those powers of hers for something bad, something that Raven didn't even want to think about. Her mother made her promise during those 16 years that she would never look for him, and now, Lois was willing to make her keep her promise.

Not that Raven was really thinking about it, after 17 years without a dominant and paternal figure around, she was fine with Clark in that position.

Living with the Kents wasn't the nightmare Raven had thought it would be before she actually allowed herself to be cared for by them. Of course, nothing would be the same as before and she no longer had Angela's positive smile and captivating aura around. But Clark, Lois and Jon made their way into Raven's bruised heart and helped her see that she could have a new family with people who loved her.

They let her have her own space and time, kept her in the same school, even though she had to cross the bridge every day. They gave her their trust to discover and practice the control of her powers on her own and did not pressure her to go to Dr. Quinzel after the post mourning sessions were over. Raven felt as happy as she could be, even though she knew there was a hole in her chest that would never heal.

Raven snorted and opened her locker, avoiding looking in any other direction when hearing Rose Wilson's voice not far from where she was. She and Rose used to be friends and then everything became weird until they were no longer close.

Part of Raven always wondered what had happened, the other part had no desire to know.

\- "Hello princess of darkness." - Donna's voice came from her side and Raven smiled. Donna Troy was her best friend since they understood each other and Donna knew each of Raven's secrets, from the shallowest to the deepest.

Donna had been one of the pillars of strength that helped Raven to get back up again.

\- "Hello moon goddess." - Raven replied with a smile, trying to get the animation back to her face when she saw Donna with that huge smile on her face and her blue eyes adorned by a perfect outline... _How did she manage to do that?_

\- "Well... I know you don't want to answer me about it even though I filled your mailbox yesterday, but... Do you know what you're going to do today?"

Raven froze, remembering what Donna was talking about. The high school music project.

She managed to survive that whole year by avoiding music classes and performances due to grief and trauma, but her term was over. As much as she still loved music and felt that it was her connection with her mother, just thinking about hearing something triggered her. And then, she just moved away more and more from something she loved since she learned to speak.

The song became a nightmare that reminded her repeatedly that she lost her mother because she was on her way to perform it at school.

But Dinah Lance, a music project teacher, had told her that the deadline had passed and that this would be her last chance to present something and she knew how devastated Donna would be if she were kicked out of the project.

Just like Clark and Lois.

\- "Mmm."

\- "Raven for all the gods and goddesses of Olympus, don't tell me you forgot?"

\- "I didn't. And I'll know what to present when it's time time.'

\- "Really, Rae?" - Donna's face became serious and her eyes darkened and Raven saw the storm coming. - "Is that all really the answer you have for me? You heard Mrs. Lance, this is your last chance!"

\- "I know...I was there when she said that, oddly enough."

\- "You better be there today too-"

\- "See you there." - Rose Wilson's voice got closer, no more than 10 steps away from the two girls, making Donna roll her eyes.

Rose walked smiling among the students, handing out flyers with her platinum hair perfectly tied in a high ponytail. She almost didn't look like the girl who was once Raven's childhood friend Now she was almost a perfect copy of Cassandra Sandsmark, who came right behind her with that fake smile for the football team players. And along with the two, Joseph Wilson, or just Joey, for most everyone.

Joey was Rose's brother and Raven had a crush on him for the past few years. It wasn't love, it was a silly, innocent crush that Raven knew would one day pass. Maybe because he was cute or maybe because he was always kind to others. Raven couldn't say, she just ... had that crush on him.

She wasn't in love with Joey and she knew it, passion and love were different things that she had never experienced but that she felt when she saw Clark and Lois together. Joey was just a small boyish crush. He was sweet, gentle, a great musician as well as looking like an angel with curly blond hair. He was mute since he was a child, and Raven had had very little chance of talking to him, but she wanted to learn sign language when she got the chance.

She never had.

\- "Oh my greek gods, what are they giving out?" - Donna growled making a face.

\- "I don't know. Maybe despair?" - Raven whispered, - "You should know, aren't you and Cassandra in the same sisterhood or something?"

\- "It doesn't mean that I know everything they do."

\- "Great, now she is coming towards us." - Raven growled between her teeth before Rose stopped in front of the two holding out a pamphlet written with the name of her group in bold letters _"Ravagers tomorrow at the opening show, here at the school gymnasium!"_. Raven swallowed, this was her show last year, a year later and she still couldn't believe how things had changed for her.

And it hurt.

\- "For you. Our group will perform tomorrow at the opening show." - Cassie said with a fake smile on her lips - "But, I'm sure you have better things to do, don't you?"

\- "Oh my god, Cassie! Thank you!" - Donna replied in the same ironic and false tone.

\- "Oh my god, Donna! Don't even worry about showing up!" - Cassie said, putting her hand on Donna's arm.

\- "Well, come on Cassie..." - Rose grunted rolling her eyes before giving Raven a quick look as if to say something she couldn't do. - "We have to hand out more flyers." - And before Cassandra said anything else, they turned their backs, giving fake smiles to the other people in the corridor again.

Raven still did not understand what had happened so that she and Rose were no longer friends. After so many years it had become a strange memory that she almost never tried to poke. It had become a fog from the years that Raven was a child who didn't care about anything but seeing the small CD store her mother had and running to hide between laughter in the middle of the shelves.

She huffed out a breath and leaned against the locker, her eyes resting without wanting to on Joey who was listening to the ukulele he was carrying, tuning it up while he didn't give a damn about the school around him.

Before Raven could control it, a sigh came from her lips.

\- "Joey?" - Donna asked confused, pulling Raven's attention to the earth again. - "Do you still have a crush on him? You know, there are rumors that he is gay and...ou would have to live with Rose and the evil babies she is going to have with a football player."

\- "Joey is a sweet guy."

\- "How do you know that if you never talked to him?" - Raven made a face. - "You know, this demon thing is passed by blood, you just need the parents of one of them to be a devil for them to be demons." - Raven laughed, closing the locker again.

\- "Donna!"

\- "Want to see?" - Donna raised her eyebrows and turned towards Rose and Cassie. - "Demon!" - And as if Donna was calling them, Rose and Cassie looked at them, making them both laugh out loud. - "Aww...here's that smile." - She squeezed Raven's cheek lightly. - "Now let's prove to everyone that they are wrong and that you and your bird's voice are back."

Donna put her arm around Raven's shoulder and practically dragged her to the music room, which was beginning to be filled by other students taking their places. Raven sat in the back as usual, trying to stay as invisible as she could. If she managed to stay hidden, perhaps Mrs. Lance would not remember what she had said to her about this being the last chance.

Raven managed to avoid most of the class, but when the last student introduced himself (Joey playing the Ukulele perfectly), Dinah's blue eyes turned to the girl with short black hair hidden behind a leather jacket at the back of the room.

\- "Okay, all of you are great and evolving a lot in your chosen techniques, congratulations to everyone." - A shower of applause and whistles filled the room as Dinah smiled and walked towards Raven - "But, we have one more presentation today... Raven?"

Raven swallowed and looked at Dinah, despair building on her face. Rose, who was sitting across from her, turned to look at Raven with a smug smile on her lips. Raven could only think of running, hiding, or facing that fear of hers. It had been a year since she played on an instrument or sang or listened to a song and she missed it, she needed to get over it and close that open wound at once.

Dinah gave her a positive smile and Raven saw that she had no choice, she needed to do this, she needed to face her fears and traumas. She stood up and shyly walked between the chairs, with Dinah holding her shoulders until she was facing the double bass positioned there and waiting for her to pick it up. And with every step she took, it seemed to scream for her.

Her fingers closed around the bass's neck and lifted it into the air with a heavy sigh when she finally seemed to be in control of herself. Raven took a deep breath and pulled the strap over her head, finally putting the weight of the instrument on her shoulders, opening the score in front of her.

\- "Take a deep breath." - Dinah whispered, - "Take your time."

Raven sighed and licked her lips and took a quick look at the score in front of her. It was the song she was going to perform that night, with a band from other people and that would probably fill Angela with pride and then it all seemed too much. She knew she needed to get over this trauma, but the moment the bass fit against her body, she heard all those voices telling her that she had caused her mother's death exactly because of that again and again.

She froze and the instrument felt too heavy, threatening to pull her to the floor.

Her heart dropped to her stomach and she remembered the accident, her mother and the pain she felt when she knew she would never see Angela again.

She wouldn't be able to do it again, the music had died for her along with Angela.

Raven swallowed and took the strap off the bottom of her neck and placed it on the pedestal again, meeting Dinah's disappointed look when she looked up again. Donna got up at once, knowing what lay ahead.

\- "I'm sorry, Mrs. Lance... I... I can't do that."

\- "So..." - Rose raised her eyebrow, - "Is it now that we should applaud or...?" - Raven looked at Rose and then at the other students, some seemed to be holding a giggle with their hands.

Raven couldn't stay there. She could feel everything she struggled to control in those past 365 days breaking and invading her so she just turned and left the room, leaving anything she had behind before she let go of her demons. Her eyes stung and she could feel hot, violent tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

\- "Shut up, Rose." - Donna murmured, passing Rose with a deliberate bump to run after Raven, carrying her things anyway and doing her best not to lose sight of her.

Donna found Raven near the bathroom, fighting the urge to cry as sobs made her shiver. She didn't say anything, she didn't have to either. She just opened her arms and Raven curled up on her friend's shoulder, too disappointed in herself to be able to say anything.

\- "I can't..." - Raven murmured.

\- You need to go back there and show them that you are still you!

\- "I can't Donna... I tried! I tried for this whole year. I tried for you, my sister from another mister, for Lois and Clark and Jon who are taking care of me and trying to make my life normal again. I tried for myself, I tried for my mother, to keep her memory alive inside me but...the truth is that I can't. The music in me was part of my mother and that part is gone."

Donna took a trembling breath, trying not to cry as well. Raven still carried so many scars on her heart that she tried to hide, they were all exposed when she was vulnerable like that, and they still drowned her.

Donna ran a hand through Raven's hair, stroking and comforting and being the shoulder she needed at that moment to cry on. Donna knew the pain of being an orphan in a family that she had to get used to being a part of and knew that it would take Raven time to accept this as normal, maybe she never would.

\- "Look, we'll talk to Dinah later, she can definitely give you another chance."

\- "She won't give me another chance, Donna," - Raven snorted, pulling a lock of hair out of her eyes behind her ear. - "You heard, it was today or never."

\- "Let's not talk about it now, okay?" - Donna smiled, both hands on Raven's shoulders, - "You need something that this school cannot offer."

\- "What?"

\- "Ice cream!" - She laughed. - "Let's go to my place, Diana will not be there and we can watch some trash movies and even drink the tequila that she hides in the closet, if that makes you better."

\- "But what about class?"

\- "You have already gone a month without showing up in this place, one more day, one less day will not make a difference." - She smiled. - "Besides, if I see Rose and Cassie being annoyingly demonic again, I swear I'll punch them in the face. I'd rather be suspended for skipping class than for breaking the nose of those plastic dolls."

Raven smiled, it was weak but sincere. Donna was the only one who could bring any smile to the surface when she heard those voices whispering in her mind. In that moment, she was the only one who made her feel a little less worse for not being able to return to normal.

They left the school before anyone could see them. Being a large school full of rich people from Gotham City and Metropolis, it was not difficult to sneak out of the parking lot without being seen by the teachers or the dean. oon, they were entering the dorm where Donna spent time when they weren't in the classroom or walking around the two cities, Gotham and Metropolis (and sometimes Central City).

Donna lived with a group of athletes, who called themselves 'Amazonas'. They were trained by Diana Prince and Raven had already seen them in action. She definitely felt sedentary after seeing her friend's battery of exercises and fighting training. In that group, there was still Artemis, Nubia, Yara and of course, Cassandra Sandsmark, the girl who made Raven want to throw up.

Cassandra was too much of a _"I am a perfect princess"_ for her taste.

Raven stayed all morning with Donna watching some stupid cliché that was playing on TV and when she returned home, she had almost forgotten about the school incident. Probably she would get scolded for skipping class and for losing her place in the music project. She could already see visits to Dr. Quinzel being scheduled again to "overcome the trauma."

Now, she felt stupid for it all.

When Lois and Clark arrived from work, with Jon beside them and their and their faces beaming, Raven was doing her best to stay focused on her schoolwork. She had to stay busy to be able to disguise that she was doing some activity that day, but all she found were math calculations that she had been procrastinating for weeks.

Math was her life's enemy.

\- "Oh, good... You are home already." - Lois said with a smile, as she hung up her and Jon's coats in the entry closet. Raven swallowed, preparing for the scolding. - "We went to see Jon's game."

\- "I had to spend the day doing a story about dumping toxic waste in the stall... I urgently need a shower." - Clark grimaced.

\- "You stink, dad." - Jon said, wrinkling his nose.

\- "You are not far from that, little boy."

\- "You both stink, go to the shower before dinner." - Lois said in an imperative tone, causing the two to bow their heads and obey her order without complaint, leaving Lois and Raven alone. Lois leaned against the bench next to Raven, with a look that Raven couldn't tell was a sign of a storm or good news.

\- "I don't know what's going on in this city, but...today there was so much news to write! I hardly had time to eat." - Raven turned the tables and this time, she made the face of disapproval, which was a message quickly picked up by Lois. - "But, I got a call today..." - Raven took a deep breath, letting the air out slowly. She was going to get the biggest scolding of her life, she knew that. She swallowed and looked everywhere but Lois.

\- "Well, I thought it would happen but-"

\- "Yeah." - Lois tried to smile, looking too anxious, she sat in the seat next to Raven. - "It was my friend who is a realtor, she's taking care of the papers for the sale of the store and the apartament."

\- "Ah..." - Raven opened her mouth and then closed it again. It wasn't scolding, understood, it was about selling Raven's mother's store. The small apartment they shared in Gotham had been put up for sale the previous month. Now Raven didn't know what to feel, she was about to say goodbye to something that was the biggest part of her childhood: the CD store, in the center of Gotham City. - "This is about that."

\- "Yes. And she said that if you really want to sell the store, we should take some pictures and put it on the website." - She made a face. - "Jimmy Olsen can take care of that part, but you know what that means, the store needs cleaning up and put an end to some things that are there."

_End some things_.

That sentence weighed on Raven's chest like a rock. She hadn't thought of that before, when she decided to sell the apartment, Lois forbade her to go and get the things that had been left there. Raven was still in the middle of 3 weekly appointments with the therapist and was still psychologically fragile. So her things just appeared in boxes in her room, without her knowing what had happened to her mother's things. Now, all that remained of Angela for Raven was a picture frame, a chest of things she had never opened, half a bottle of perfume and memories that even time could not erase.

\- "Mmmm... Okay." - Raven uttered, looking back at the sheets and numbers in front of her, not interested in understanding them. Not anymore.

\- "And..." - Lois took in a breath, - "Could you take care of cleaning the store, maybe? Raven felt a lump in her throat and her breathing became heavy. Could she? She couldn't even pick up an instrument without remembering her mother and hearing those voices. - "You are the expert!" - Lois was quick to say. - "Me and Clark took 3 whole days to know what we should and shouldn't bring you from the apartment and we wouldn't even know where to start in a CD store. But it's okay if you're not ready yet, Raven."

\- "No. It's okay." - She tried to force a smile, which on Lois's face looked more like a grimace - "I... I can try that today, if you can go to Gotham. You need to see the apartment paperwork anyway, I can do that while you are working with red tape."

\- "Yes? This is great!" - Lois smiled, an open and relieved smile and then stood up and maternally kissed the top of Raven's head. - "This is wonderful, Rae. And don't forget that back room. Your mother always opened the place for bands in the city to rehearse, so there must be some old instruments in there. They will need a new home." - Raven smiled thinly, looking at a fixed spot for a long second.

\- "Mom would like that."

\- "Yeah, she would like that." - She ran her hand over Raven's hair. - "Oh... I'll see what those two are up to in the shower. We have two and a half bathrooms, but that doesn't mean they need to live in them. Did you see my cell phone? I'm thinking of buying pizza for dinner tonight, I can't prepare dinner after we go and come back from Gotham."

\- "In your coat pocket, Lois." - Raven said, rolling his eyes with a smirk.

\- "Of course, in my coat pocket." - She grinned, raising her finger as if remembering where the cell phone was. She left mumbling things about having to cut down on work or she would go crazy at any moment, leaving Raven and her math calculations with her head full on the kitchen counter.

Raven focused on her breathing, trying to let courage fill every cell in her body. She must be prepared for this, Gotham was not the safest place in the world so the best thing to do with the things she had left there was to sell them and save the money for a future college. If she didn't, the store would soon be plundered and looted and the apartment would be invaded. This wasn't how she expected the things that had been her mother's life to end and that was what Conner had said, months before.

She needed to get rid of those assets in order to turn the page.

Conner was another son of Clark and was only a year and a half older than Raven, but he was already in college. But much to Raven's nightmare he was almost like a gossiping aunt. Whatever Raven or Jon did that was out of line, for some reason of mocking the gods, Conner would find out and have a gabfest with anyone almost instantly.

Raven suspected that the reason for all this was that he was almost Cassandra's boyfriend, and the hell in Raven's life meant exactly that name: Cassandra Sandsmark.

Shortly afterwards, they were all tucked into the car heading towards Gotham. Even though they crossed that bridge every day to go to school, Raven had forgotten how much she liked that place. How she had grown up in the heart of that city, felt its pulse and learned to admire its gray color and how it could almost be lifeless.

Lois asked Raven a million times if she wanted some company to clean the store and that Jon could help her, since the place was dark and it was just after 7:00 pm. Raven assured her that she needed to do this alone a million times and with a defeated sigh, Lois said that they would be right upstairs in the apartment and all she had to do was scream.

Raven watched them walk towards the side entrance, and Raven knew it like the back of her hand. There was a very small, narrow staircase that led to a second door on the second floor. Raven had lost count of how many times she had slipped down the stairs when it snowed or when she came running in out of the rain, and how many times Angela gave kisses to heal injuries when she fell to the ground.

When they disappeared at the door, Raven held her breath and put the key in the store door. Releasing her breath slowly, she turned the key and opened the door, listening to the tinkle of the bell warning that she was there. Suddenly, her mind was invaded by memories she had there. Happy memories of her running and hiding from Angela in the middle of the shelves or how she tried to place the CD's more and more randomly than the day before. How she helped Angela with the accounting and how it took her time and patience to convince her mother to finally scan the store's accounts and purchases with a computer and inventory system. Not that they sold rivers of CDs and vinyl, it was more of a collector thing and her little store was almost an antique shop. But she liked that little place very much, she could feel Angela's presence in every corner of that store as if she was still there.

Raven turned on the lights and felt the avalanche of memories fill her again, and she felt that Angela was there, right beside her. Almost as if she could touch her. On top of the cashier's desk, there was the flyer for Raven's presentation with a note written "get the laundry" with Angela's perfect handwriting along with a copy of the handwriting Raven spent weeks rehearsing there with a message written in pen at the end. Raven swallowed and just put it together with a stack of bills that she paid to take with her.

She would have the strength to read that message someday, it wasn't today.

She ran her fingers over the counter and sat on the chair, letting out her breath slowly as if taking a weight off her back.

\- "I'm sorry, Mom. I haven't been here..." - She put her hand on her face - "I... I couldn't come here."

Raven looked up and closed her eyes, not sure if she believed Angela would be there somewhere in the afterlife, but hoping with all her heart that she was seeing her.

She blinked a few times and stood up, shaking her head as she walked back towards the CD and vinyl shelves until she finally reached the back room. A kind of studio for local bands to rehearse and even prepare to make small performances on the small stage Angela had set up in the store.

Angela was a lover of music and bands that may not have had the opportunity to perform at the Gotham Theater. They had at least the support of Angela Roth, a room with good acoustics and snacks.

And their CDs were sold on the store shelves.

Raven was almost deciding to make notes of what she was going to discard and what memories she would carry with her when something caught her eye, because it was something that shouldn't be there.

In the middle of some instruments, there was a demo CD. It was a simple, black cover with a small dead robin bird drawn on the front. The art was handmade but despite that, it was very beautiful. Raven tried not to get carried away by curiosity but something on that CD called her, almost like a magnet that she couldn't avoid.

Unable to ignore her curiosity, she picked up the CD cover on the floor and looked at the name of the songs on the back. There were not many, only 5 songs and the name of the band was written in yellow and black letters _**"Dead Robins Club."**_

_They definitely needed a better name._

Raven bit her lip deciding whether to listen or not, she knew there was a stereo somewhere in the store but should she? Ignoring any red light that threatened warnings in her head, Raven walked over to where she remembered where Angela hid the stereo and put in the CD to play.

The sound of a guitar and a drum soon filled the store and brought life and color back inside. They might have a bad name, but it was a very good band with the potential to pop on the rock charts and Raven would probably hear them on the streams all the time. For a brief moment, Raven caught a glimpse of the music coming back to her life and she even managed to smile while listening to the guitar riffs and the beat of a strong and enveloping bass until everything was weird. As if something was going wrong and the CD started to run in reverse. Raven had to cover her ears because they sounded like screams coming from somewhere and she couldn't help feeling the chill run down her spine. And then there was a crash, the lights in the whole store flashed and then it stopped, the music playing normally again.

Raven opened her eyes, slowly lowering the hands that were on her ears and found 3 boys lying on the floor right in front of her, moaning in pain. They looked like they were dressed for a party or for Halloween, but Raven didn't care. She was too panicked to care.

How did those kids get into the store? Where did they come from? Who were they? Raven didn't know how to answer and something in her head screamed just one thing: run, but her feet were stuck to the floor. They stood up slowly, their backs to her as they coughed and searched for air, until finally they seemed to be able to stand and look around, trying to recognize the place.

\- "Wow! Holy shit! " - One of them said, trying to catch his breath and then, three sets of eyes landed on the figure of the girl in front of them. - "Hey!"

And Raven managed to do the only thing that came to her mind: she screamed.


	3. Wake Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And you use your pain  
> 'Cause it makes you you  
> Though I wish I could hold you through it  
> I know it's not the same  
> You got living to do  
> And I just want you to do it  
> So get up, get out, relight that spark  
> You know the rest by heart
> 
> (Wake Up - Madison Reyes / Julie and the Phantoms)

\- "Wow! Holy shit" - The one on the right said, a little dizzy as he scratched his head. He had long, black hair, just below the ear and deep blue eyes. He appeared to be the oldest of the three and wore a costume that looked like a failed attempt to be something like _Gomez Adams_ from _The Adams Family_.

\- "How did we get back here?" - The middle one asked confused, his eyebrows almost forming one as he tried to recognize the place. He looked the youngest, had cinnamon skin and green eyes like two emeralds and a small scar on his right eyebrow. He was dressed as a vampire, fake blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, and his long black hair was tied up in a man bun.

The third just grunted, still leaning on his knees for air. He had short hair with a white streak and blue-green eyes. He wore a very poorly made costume that reminded Raven of the movie “ _The Crow_ ” that she and Donna once watched during a Halloween session.

\- "Hey!”

When the three seemed to catch their breath, their eyes landed on Raven who was still frozen on the floor. Before they could attempt any kind of approach, Raven felt the ice in her body finally break and the adrenaline circulate in her blood again and the only reaction she had was to scream, scream as loudly as she could.

Hearing her scream, the three screamed too, and everything turned into a strange symphony of screams as the store's light flashed at the same frequency. Terrified, Raven only managed to run from there, climbing the stairs of the building by jumping a few steps.

If she had someone else's company, she wouldn't be in danger of seeing hauntings.

When she opened the door, Lois and Clark were already coming to her rescue with the worried face they always had.

\- "Hey, hey!" - Clark said, holding her arm.

\- "Clark! Clark!"

\- "Hey!" - He looked at her, - "Slow down... Take a deep breath. You're too pale, it looks like you saw a ghost!"

\- "I did!" - Raven said, almost spitting the words out of her mouth. - "Not just one! Three!"

\- "Ghosts?" - Jon said with a smile, - "Cool!"

\- "It's not cool, Jonathan!" - Raven insisted. - "Why are you still here? Run! Save yourselves!" - She shouted, running to where her room once was. Her things might not have been there, but it was still her room. With its violet wallpaper, her bed and the marks of posters that were once nailed to the wardrobe.

Raven threw herself on the bed and covered her head with the blanket, sending her emergency code to Donna. Donna would be rational and help her now, but by all the gods! Why didn't she answer the damn message?

\- "What is up Donna?" - Raven growled looking at the phone screen. - "It's 911... It's an emergency! Why don't you answer me!"

\- "Hey!" - Clark's voice came from the door and Raven screamed, jumping under the cover in fright and with her hand on her chest, as if she could calm her heart down. When she realized it was Clark, she breathed a sigh of relief, uncovering her head again and sitting on the bed.

\- "Jesus, Clark."

\- "Excuse me." - He gave a wry smile. - "I just wanted to know if you're okay."

\- "You don't believe me, do you?" Raven rolled her eyes, feeling safe enough to get out from under the covers that were no longer hers.

\- "Of course I believe you!" - Clark said in a charismatic way, but Raven knew he didn't understand what she was talking about. - "Raven, I see my dad all the time!"

\- "This is not like that!" - Raven said firmly. They needed to believe what she had seen. There were 3 ghosts in her mother's store. She wasn't crazy.

\- "I know. It's different for each person, I understand that."

\- "Clark." - Raven said rolling his eyes, - "You are not hearing me, I saw something down there."

He looked at her for a few seconds and nodded, sitting on the bed and holding her hands as if she were a child throwing a tantrum. She hated it and she knew what was coming: they would think she was crazy.

\- "Okay. Alright!" - He smiled. - "I'm listening now. Tell me what you saw. We are alone here."

\- "You're talking like Dr. Quinzel." - Raven sighed in frustration, crossing her arms.

\- "Well, maybe seeing Dr. Quinzel again is not a bad idea."

\- "Clark!" - Raven said irritated, closing her eyes. They really did think she was crazy, but she was sure of what she had seen. It would scare her for the rest of her days. But no matter what she said, they would still see her as someone about to break. Raven took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead. - "Can we just ... forget this?"

\- "Okay." - Clark said smiling, patting her leg before getting up. - "Forgotten! Are we okay?" - He smiled, holding out his hand for her to pat. Raven smirked and placed her palm on top of his.

\- "We are fine." - He smiled paternally at her and then hugged her quickly. - "Well," - He looked at the phone screen quickly. - "I'll leave you alone. I think this place may have messed with you somehow and you need a minute alone. Lois wants me to pick up pizzas while we still have stacks of documents to review so if you need to go out and get some air?"

\- "I'm fine, Clark."

\- "Okay..." - He grinned and signaled that he would leave the room, leaving Raven alone again with her own thoughts. She wasn't crazy, she was sure of it. She needed to prove to herself that she had seen the ghosts of three boys appear from inside a CD in the middle of the floor of her mother's old store.

Raven swallowed her fear and filled her chest with courage. Even though she felt like an idiot, she searched for a crucifix image on google. She was pretty sure it wouldn't work for anything, but for some stupid reason, they did it in horror movies. And maybe it made her feel more secure.

She quickly passed Clark and Lois, only replying that she would go back to the store. Saying there was something she had forgotten, telling Jon also to stay out of the way while disappearing down the stairs. Raven opened the door slowly, pointing the phone screen at the dark store in front of her.

It looked empty again, exactly the way it was when she first walked in there. She quickly turned on the lights, her eyes roaming all over the place, finding nothing but an old computer, some papers and CD shelves.

\- “Are you still here?” - She asked timidly, trying to calm her beating heart. - “Whoever or whatever you are.” - She paused, letting out her breath slowly, but got no answer. The place was quiet as if nothing had happened before. - “I know I saw something.” - Raven muttered to herself, defeated. - “I know I'm not crazy!”

\- “Everyone's a little crazy!” - A male voice came from behind her and Raven turned quickly, pointing the phone screen in his direction and shouting again. They had to stop taking her by surprise.

\- “No! Please! Stop screaming! Why doesn't she stop screaming?” - The white-haired boy said, covering his ears with his fingers and Raven took a deep breath, closing her mouth quickly. She needed to calm her nerves if she wanted to expel whatever they were from there.

\- “Who are you? And what are they doing in my store!”

\- “Your store? This place was our studio!” - The boy with green eyes spoke furrowing his brows..

\- “Believe me…” - The other, with long black hair and blue eyes said smiling, - “It's a little dusty and…” - He smiled and threw himself in an armchair. - “My armchair!” - He beamed and stretched himself out. Then he looked around and arched his eyebrow. - “Wait, that definitely wasn't my guitar.” - He straightened up in his chair and started looking everywhere. - “And that shelf wasn't there.” - He pointed to a new shelf that Raven remembered setting up with Angela.

\- “And since when is a computer here? And since when are the phones so... thin?” - The one with the green eyes said looking at the computer on the counter. - “Wait...can you give us a second?” - He passed close to Raven dodging the direction of the crucifix on the phone screen. - “Just a second! Thank you!”

He looked annoyed, his eyebrows furious as he pulled the other two by their clothes toward the door. He spoke quietly, but for some reason, Raven could still hear.

\- “Can someone tell me what the hell is going on here?” - He said between his teeth. - “How did she bring these things here so fast?”

\- “Maybe she is a witch…” - The boy with long hair and blue eyes said thoughtfully. - “Look, she looks like a witch!”

\- “There is no such thing as a witch, Dick!” - The boy with a white streak said rolling his eyes.

\- “Are you sure, Jaybird? Because I thought there were no ghosts and, well, look at us now.”

\- “Okay, that makes a little sense.” - He scratched his chin.

\- “So, do we think she's a witch?”

\- “No! Of course not, Grayson!” - The boy with green eyes said quickly. - “And it doesn't make sense, Todd. But it is a possibility that she has the power to bring these things here so quickly, remember our father's study of metahuman children?”

\- “She's not a witch, okay?” - Todd said calmly. - “Look, she's just a scared girl! Let someone with a slightly softer touch take care of that.” - He gave a wry smile and turned to Raven again. He walked slowly over to her, she was still holding the phone in his direction. He smiled thinly and bowed at her height and after letting out his breath, he said loud and clear, - “Why are you in our studio?”

Raven looked at him, too scared to be able to say anything but a shout. His eyes were watery green, as if they had been mixed with a light blue, almost turquoise, and he had an almost imperceptible scar near his lip.

In a moment of madness, Raven took the cell phone screen with the image of the cross and placed it on him, waiting for something to happen. Her hand went right through him and Raven felt every ounce of courage go away quickly. Her worst suspicion had been realized, they were ghosts.

\- “OH MY GOD! HOW DID YOU DO THAT?” - She almost screamed, looking terrified at her own hand coming out of him.

\- “You clearly don't understand.” - He pinched the bridge of his nose and then turned to the other two quickly. - “She doesn't understand. Okay, look...we are ghosts, okay? We are three ghosts that are happy to return home. So thanks for the sheets on top of everything and for the dust spread on the floor and furniture, they really gave an air of Halloween to the space.”

\- “We actually have a band called _The Dead Robins' Club_.” - The green-eyed boy said.

\- “Tell your friends!” - The one with long hair and blue eyes said with a happy smile. - “Yesterday was supposed to be an important night that would change the history of our band and our life forever.”

\- “Well, I think it has changed in some way, my friend.” - the boy with the lock in his hair said, grimacing.

\- "This is driving me crazy." Raven shook her head quickly trying to get reason back to herself. Quickly, she picked up the phone again and opened google, typing the name of the band. They looked curious with the device in her hand. They approached slowly looking at what she was doing.

\- “What is that? What are you doing?” - The boy with green eyes said, pointing to the device in her hand.

\- “It's my cell phone.” - Raven said, rolling her eyes. Then she raised her eyebrow and turned around. - “Stop talking to them, Raven. They are not real. Dr. Quinzel will probably be able to explain why you‘re seeing three cute ghosts in your mom's store!”

\- “Aww.” - The boy with blue eyes said with a smirk. - “She thinks we are cute!”

\- “Who are you calling?” - The boy with the white streak said, trying to see what she was doing on her cell phone, standing on his tiptoes.

\- “I'm googling **Mad** Robins’ Club…”

\- “It's the **Dead** Robins' Club!” - The green-eyed boy corrected her, still looking annoyed. Raven sighed and clicked on the first news she managed to find from a trusted source. She read quickly, trying to absorb the news. They were the kid’s of _Bruce Wayne_ , Gotham City's most famous billionaire. They were on a quest to become big names in the rock scene without the influence of the name Wayne. They used codenames like _Robin_ , _Nightwing_ , _Red Hood_ and _Red Robin_ so that they were not associated with the name Wayne. But their true identities had been revealed when they died of food poisoning due to a pizza of questionable origin. The fourth member of the band, _Tim Drake_ , also known as _Red Robin_ , had abandoned music and was now one of the directors at Wayne Tech's London headquarters.

\- “Well…” - Raven exhaled, looking at them quickly, - “There really was a _Dead Robins Club_.” - She looked at the story again. - “And you really died…”

\- “See?” - The boy with the lock of hair said with a satisfied smile.

\- “But it wasn't last night…” - She raised her eyebrow, - “It was 10 years ago.”

\- “What? No... No way!”

\- “This is not possible, after we left the ambulance we went to that room and-”

\- “And Todd cried all the time.”

\- “Well, I think we were all pretty sad and we cried, right?”

\- “I didn't cry…”

\- “But what was that? We didn't stay there for more than an hour and then we showed up here.”

\- “Look.” - Raven took a frustrated breath and turned the phone screen with the news to them. - “I'm just saying what's in this news from the Gotham Gazette. See? You died in 2010, on the eve of a show at the Gotham Theater, on October 31st. When you ate a poisoned pizza and you...” - she pointed at the green-eyed boy, - “You were just 17 years old. We are in 2020.”

\- “So this is the future?” - The blue-eyed boy asked.

\- “Wait.” - The white-haired boy said, seeming to finally understand what was going on. - “So it's been 10 years? Have I been crying for 10 years? How is this possible?”

\- “You are pretty sensitive, Jaybird!”

\- "No, I am not!"

\- “Weren't you afraid to come here?” - Jon's voice came from behind them. And Raven, for a few seconds, wondered if he could see them too. But the fact that he passed directly through the three with a smile on his face removed any possibility of that. - “Are you talking to your ghost friend? Is he really ugly? Dragging around chains?”

\- “He can see you!” - The one with the blue eyes said looking at the white one with a wide grin.

\- “No, he can’t!” - Raven said quickly, making Jon quickly look back trying to see where she was looking. She needed to stop, a word from Jon and she would be hospitalized for 6 months at _Arkham Asylum_.

\- “What? What can’t I do?

\- “Nothing.” - Raven mumbled, rolling his eyes. - “What do you want, Jon?”

\- “A normal sister to begin with.” - Jon declared with slight frustration. - “Stop being weird and come to dinner, Dad brought the pizzas.”

\- “First, Clark is not my father so we are not siblings and second, I'm leaving.” - She announced. Jon shrugged and headed back towards the door leaving Raven alone with the three ghosts again. - “He couldn't see you?”

\- “Well, this is what usually happens with ghosts.” - The boy with green eyes asserted. Raven looked at them and then snorted, walking between them towards the door.

This was very weird and she didn't want to think about it. She was sure she was in the middle of a crisis, she just needed to get out of there and take a calming breath. She took a few steps, but turned to them. Regardless of whether they were real or not, they couldn't stay there. She would never be able to get rid of the place and turn the page if it was rumored that it was a haunted building.

\- “Look, I'm sorry for what happened to you, but this is not your studio anymore. You need to go!” - She huffed and turned her back, walking back towards the door only to be interrupted by the blue-eyed boy.

\- “But wait, you didn't even tell us your name.”

\- “It's Raven.”

\- “Oh, cool. By the way... I'm Richard, but you can call me Dick.”

\- “Damian.” - The green-eyed boy said, looking bored.

\- “And I'm Jason.” - The boy with white streak said, waving his hands. - “How are you?”

\- “ _Tada_!” - Raven looked at them and then opened her arms trying to understand what they wanted with that. It's not like she's going to change her mind just because they've introduced themselves to her. With a groan, she turned her back and started walking toward the apartment, trying to completely forget what had just happened.

She had no chance of it all being real. She couldn't say that she had a ghost trio in the store she wanted to sell. She knew what would happen the next second she told someone about it.

 _Ghosts don't exist_.

Raven found Clark with his shirt buttons almost undone, Lois with a pencil stuck in her hair while she tapped a pen to her lips and Jon with a piece of pizza in his mouth. And much to Raven's nightmare, Jon had enough time to talk about her talking to the walls in the room.

Raven took a slow breath trying not to let the paranoia take over. She walked slowly towards the counter where the pizza boxes were open and took a piece and sat quietly on the bench next to Clark. He sighed and was silent for 5 seconds, before adjusting his glasses and looking at Raven.

\- “So... Jon told us that you were talking to no one while alone in the store.”

\- “She was down there there talking to the air alone.”

\- “I was…” - Raven needed to think of something and fast. From the looks of it, the Arkham Asylum ambulance was already on its way. - “I was rehearsing for a play at school.”

\- “You can't eat pizzas every night, especially in an apartment you want to sell.” - Conner said somewhere in the house, the sound of the entrance door opening. Conner had that crooked smile that meant trouble for someone in that room.

It meant trouble for Raven.

\- “Oh, hey Kon!” - Lois said smiling.

\- “We are sunk in bureaucracies with this sales paperwork and there are so many documents to sign.” - Clark said, looking tired, but without his usual positive smile.

\- “I brought food!” - He lifted bags up - “Japanese food!”

\- “Mmm…” - Raven forced a smile. - “Thank you Conner. It smells great.”

\- “And I brought my own food, you know I need to keep the body in shape.” - He smirked. - “You can save it for later or leave a gift for the next resident. I will not let my new little sister eat pizza every night. Her mother would haunt us all, let her rest in peace.” - He put the bags in the fridge and walked over to Clark and Raven. - “Well, I see that things are better, Raven.” - He smiled, giving gentle pats on the top of Raven's head. It was annoying that he wanted to act like her older brother. Always acting as if he was going to blackmail her in a way or try to make her see that life was beautiful.

\- “Actually, very well.” - Clark said, looking proudly at Raven which made her sink deeper into the chair. - “Raven was organizing and cleaning the store while we have been here buried under paperwork. If all goes well, we will put the apartment and store up for sale soon.”

\- “Oh, great, good to know that you followed my advice, Rae! So you can turn your back on that city and move on.” - Raven forced a smile as she filled her mouth with pizza to keep Conner minding his own business and his own girlfriend. But anything she thought to say simply disappeared from her head when she saw the three ghosts from the store walking freely around the room. They looked at the pizza boxes and a smile opened on the faces of the three as they walked towards the boxes. - “Sometimes we need to rip the bandage off once and for all.”

\- “Stop it!” - Raven screamed almost without realizing it, then she noticed what she had done. Everyone was looking at her now, waiting for the explanation for such a reaction. - “Oh... Look at me, taking off the bandage.” - Jon looked at her with a loud laugh. She looked quickly at the three standing there like statues.

Gods it wasn't happening to her, it couldn't be happening to her.

\- “Aww look at my brave little sister! Already experiencing the last stage of mourning!”

The green-eyed boy, who now Raven knew as Damian, walked around the room and looked at things quickly and then turned to Raven.

\- “Hey, Raven.” - Dick said smiling. - “We love the decorating you’ve done here.”

\- “You shouldn't be here!” - Raven said between her teeth and again, her eyes went back to him again.

This definitely couldn't be happening to her.

\- "I just came to see how you were doing, little sister." Connor put his hand on his chest, pretending to be offended by what she had said.

\- “I think this is our cue to leave” - Jason said with an embarrassed smile.

\- "I mean…" - Raven tried to disguise, giving a fake smile, - "You shouldn't be here because you should be worried about your formation. Not worrying about bureaucracy and dust from an old building in Gotham, right. I’m sure you have things from your agronomy college to do. Thank you for bringing us food, anyway, big brother, but you shouldn't worry about us. Clark would never leave me without eating.”

\- "We should have called before we came." - Damian said ironically pulling the other two ghosts towards the door - "We will call next time." - Raven glared at him quickly, her gaze meaning only one thing:

 _Get out of here_.

\- "It's not a problem, Raven." - Conner said, sitting in front of Raven. - "And now that you've left the school's music program, you can focus on more important classes and focus on a real career."

Raven felt her stomach turn to stone. Lois looked up at Raven with the same speed as a heartbeat and she could read everything on each of their faces. Raven felt terrible about it, because she knew they expected her to be recovering well from what had happened after a year.

Conner looked at Clark and then at Lois and for a moment, he seemed to expect them to know what had happened at Raven's school. She just swallowed and felt like a hole swallowed her up with that deadly silence that washed over them.

\- "Mmm."

\- "You received the email from the school, right? Cassie told me that they probably must have sent an email to the students guardians."

\- "Yes, we received the email, Conner" - Lois said, lying clearly. - "We are already solving this situation."

\- "Okay." - He smiled and turned his attention to his caprese salad while silence reigned among them.

The eyes of the three Kents in question rested on Raven waiting for her to say something, but the only thing she could think about was how bad she was feeling about it. For the disappointment she had caused in them.

\- "So, Conner…" - Jon said, trying to soften the situation and change the subject to anything else. Deep down, Jon was a good brother that Raven never had. - "You know I almost got a _homerun_ but they barely caught the ball in the outfield?"

\- "You're a good brother, Jon... But it won't work." - Lois said seriously and then motioned for the three to leave. - "I'm going to have a little girl-to-woman talk with Raven, men, outside." - They all got up, leaving quickly.

\- "I tried, sorry." - Jon whispered to Raven before disappearing behind the entrance door. Raven felt her chest tighten and her breathing got heavy. She thought during the afternoon that she could escape that scolding for a while until the situation was resolved, but apparently, the relationship between Conner and Cassie was only interesting if the subject was Raven's life.

\- "Why didn't you tell me before?" - Lois asked, looking exhausted. - "We talked about this before, about you telling me things and not having any secrets here. You made me lie to Conner and Clark. Made me lie in front of Jon."

\- "I'm sorry, Lois." - Raven put her hands on her face, resting her elbows on the table. - "I was going to tell you."

\- "When? At the end of dinner? Two years from now?"

\- "I don't know, when things got better or made sense. Maybe over the weekend."

\- "Oh yes, of course."

\- "Really, Lois. I was going to tell you!"

\- "Honey, I know how difficult these classes must be for you now, but you still like music, don't you?” - Raven shrugged, trying to look anywhere but at Lois. She didn't really know if she still liked the song, it made her remember everything and it hurt.

She was almost sure that the music had left her life the moment her mother stopped breathing.

\- "I... I don't know. Maybe?"

\- "We talked about it with Dr. Quinzel, remember? These memories can be painful. But you can't succumb to them and let them kill you inside. Your mother loved music and she taught you that music has the power to heal. Music was your mother's soul and I know she wouldn't allow you to silence all of that. I know that if you allow yourself…" - She held Raven's hand on the table - "I know that if you allow yourself, you will get there. You will be able to feel her in you through the music, because she is inside you."

Lois gave Raven a thin smile and she was about to say something when a guitar and drum sound came from the store. What the hell were they doing now and why couldn’t they just go haunt somewhere else instead of making Raven look crazy?

\- "What was that?" - Jon said, running towards where Raven and Lois were.

\- "Uhh... I must have left the store's stereo on, I'm going to go turn it off." - She got up quickly and before anyone came after her, she went down the steps in seconds, opening the store door almost with her own magic.

The three played calmly on the small stage set up in the store. Where did they get those instruments from? She didn't care, if they didn't turn off that loud music, she would kill the three of them... **again**.

\- "Hey! What are you doing? Turn that off! Now!" - They smiled and finished with an audible and loud guitar solo.

\- “An offer from: _Dick Grayson_!" - Jason said, smiling behind the mic - " _The Nightwing_!"

\- "The whole neighborhood is listening to you! Are you crazy? I told you to go!"

\- “Wait…” - Damian said, looking surprised by what Raven said. - “You said the neighborhood can hear us?”

\- “Yes and that includes my whole family upstairs!”

\- “Wait a minute.” - Jason said standing up quickly. - “Only you can see us, but can everyone hear us? What kind of fucked up ghosts are we?”

\- "What difference does that make?" - Damian said putting the guitar on the pedestal, for the first time a smile appeared on his face. It was... A beautiful smile. Too beautiful for Raven's opinion. _Annoyingly_ beautiful. - "People can still hear us!"

\- “We are dead, but our music lives!” - Dick said beaming, shaking Jason by the shoulders.

Raven was about to tell them that it didn't matter at all when the store door opened and Clark came in, looking around.

\- “Clark!” - Raven said between her teeth, trying to hide the desperation in her voice. If he saw her talking to nothing there, it would be over.

\- “Hey!” - He stopped right next to Dick. - “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

\- “Oh. Yes I... I just forgot an old CD in the store's stereo.” - She gave a forced and fake smile, hoping he wouldn't notice. He looked around, his eyes finally resting on the empty instruments.

Of course, Raven knew the instruments were far from empty.

\- "Wait, are those the old things Lois said was here?"

\- “Old things?” - Damian replied almost offended. Raven was going nuts, it was completely weird, insane and crazy. Clark walked around, analyzing the instruments, sometimes running his fingertips over them or adjusting his square glasses.

\- “This thing is in perfect condition.” - He drummed his fingers on the drums. - “Maybe we can sell it and make some money.”

\- “What?” - Jason said shocked and then looked at Raven. - “Hey! Stop touching my Betsy! Tell him to take his hand off my Betsy.”

\- “I liked that song that was playing.” - Clark said leaving the drums.

\- “Cool!” - Jason said smiling. - “We are the Dead Robins Club!”

\- “Tell your friends!” - Dick said like he was some kind of idiotic manager. Damian just stayed further away, rolling his eyes.

\- “It's just a demo of an old band that I found out there. They're not even that good.”

\- “Hey!”

\- “Well…” - Clark smiled softly. - “I don't know what Lois said to you or what happened to you to change like that, but know that I'm glad you went back to listening to music. At home you can play whatever you want, when you want. Okay?” - Raven couldn't answer, panic almost escaping her face. Clark just ran his hands between Jason and Dick and didn't even know it.

Raven could hear the sound of her own brains frying.

\- “Oh! Nice!” - Dick said laughing. - “How cute!”

\- “Stay out of it!” - Raven said between her teeth looking at Dick, but Clark understood that she was talking to him.

\- “Oh... I'm sorry Raven, I- I just…”

\- “Oh... No. Not you... I mean…” - She calmed herself and took Clark's hand, pulling him towards the door. - “Look, can you give me a minute?”

\- “Okay. Hey..." - Clark said and grabbed Raven by the shoulders with a grin. - “Then we'll talk about this music project thing, okay? We will find a way.”

\- “Okay, _dad_.” - Raven said almost without realizing it, then her eyes widened. - “I mean, Clark. Thanks, Clark. Now...a minute, okay?”

Clark nodded and placed a kiss on the top of Raven's head before walking out the door leaving her alone again. She waited a few seconds to make sure she was alone and then looked at the three guys.

\- “You see, he likes our sound.” - Damian said with a smug smile, leaning against a speaker.

\- “Yeah, but…” - Jason scratched his head, - “He doesn't count, you know, he's a father.”

\- “Why can't you just be normal ghosts?” - Raven said, too angry to be able to think straight. Was she going to go crazy because of three music ghosts? Was that the end of her? - “Go haunt some mansions or drag some chains around. I heard that Central City and San Francisco are cool!” - She snorted and went out the door, closing it tightly.

\- "I think she's starting to like us." - Jason chuckled.

\- “I always wanted to go back to San Francisco.” - Dick said, swinging on his legs. - “If she is going to kick us out of here, we could go there.”

Damian shook his head and left the two of them, going over his own convictions to try to talk to that girl. She had something that pulsed within her, calling for him. And he heard that call like a siren song when she was in that room, with no hope of stopping it. If she left, he would go on forever without knowing what it meant.

Raven leaned against the wall, both hands on her temples as she massaged them, trying to find where she had lost her reason in all of this. Why did she accept all this? She was losing her mind completely and that could only be the reason she was seeing three ghosts in her mother's store.

Three cute ghosts.

An _annoyingly_ beautiful ghost.

What?

Raven shook her head and opened her eyes, only to be startled again by Damian standing there beside her. Eyes lost somewhere in the dark sky of Gotham.

\- "Jesus Christ!" - She said, holding her hand to her chest. - "Stop doing that! Really!"

\- "I didn't mean to, I'm sorry."

\- "What do you want?"

\- "I know this sounds crazy and the two idiots inside seem to share half a brain cell, but can you understand how insane it all is? People...real people can hear us play again."

\- “Yes.” - Raven rolled her eyes. - “It’s just that I had a really, really awful day. I'm sorry if I can't get excited about the fact that three ghosts appear to me without any scientific explanation for this. I need to go." - She crossed her arms and started walking towards the door.

\- "I'm sorry for your day, but the three of us just discovered that we have been gone for 10 awful years. But then we discovered that we can still do the only thing we would like to do together! This is insane!"

Raven closed her eyes, trying to calm herself and see the reason for all this. They were right, they were right to be happy after 10 years lost in the vacuum between eternal life and whatever was on the other side. And she took out her frustrations on three boys who were just happy to feel alive again.

\- "Okay. You're right.” - She pinched the bridge of her nose - "It's just that-"

\- "You had a bad day, I understand." - He leaned against the wall again and looked again at a random spot in Gotham's sky, before letting out his breath slowly. Raven didn't even know if they really needed to breathe or if he was doing it out of habit. - "Look, I'm sorry we showed up in your life. I don't know what the reason was for that to happen, I don't know why you were able to do that and bring us here. But I felt alive when I managed to play again. We all feel alive again. So, you can kick us out, but you can't ask us to give up on music." - Raven swallowed, seeing the sparkle in his eyes when talking about music as if he could see the depths of her soul, illuminating corners that she previously seemed to have forgotten to clean. - “No artist would give up his art.”

Raven felt that phrase like a slap in the face. As if Angela was there in front of her saying it to her and it hurt more than a slap. How could she give up on something that was her soul since she understood herself? How can she turn her back on something that ran in her blood the first fall she took?

\- "You should know that." - Jason's voice came from behind them. - "Your mother likes music! We knew her from when we rehearsed here and we knew how much music was part of her soul."

\- "She liked...she died last year in a car accident while…" - Raven swallowed her own voice, - "While going to my first live performance." - Now, with all three of them there, Raven felt an unbearable burden of guilt on her back. She didn't dare say that during those 365 days, but saying it out loud to three strangers now just seemed...right.

\- "I’m... - Damian scratched his throat, - “I'm sorry.”

\- "We didn't know." - Jason said, looking really serious for the first time.

\- "It's okay." - Raven took a deep breath, stuffing her hands in her jacket pocket. - "You... You didn't see her around, did you? Wherever you came from."

\- "No. I'm sorry." - Jason said, hands in his pockets. - "You are the first person we met."

_Of course, what was she thinking?_

\- "But, she's alive so it kind of doesn't help at all." - Dick said, scratching his chin.

\- "Yeah, I think she understood what we said, Dick." - Jason grumbled, rolling his eyes and then looked at Raven again. - "I'm sorry for your loss."

\- "Thank you." - She took a shaky breath. - "Mmm .. I'm sorry for the irritation. You are actually pretty good."

\- "Good...?" - Damian said with a raised eyebrow. - "You know that... we've been rusty for 10 years, right? We're just dusting it off." - Raven smiled, shaking her head.

\- "Yeah." - Dick agreed. - "And do you play anything? You said you were going to your first performance, right?"

\- "No." - Raven shook her head. - "I...I don't play anything. It was a stupid school thing. Everything inside was my mother's."

\- "So she was an amazing songwriter!" - Damian raised an eyebrow, - "And we never knew that!"

\- "What? No, wait... How?"

\- "There's music on the counter. If it's hers, your mother was really talented." - Raven smirked, remembering the rehearsals she did with Angela. How that composition that Raven would present had her love in every letter and cipher. Angela helped Raven write and Raven had promised that she would record it one day on a CD just so she could remember that she started it all.

\- "We...did it together." - Raven said.

\- "Your mother must be very proud of you, Raven."- Dick said after a second of silence. - “Your composition shows that you are very talented.”

Raven felt her cheeks heat up and then she smiled thinly and turned her back ready to enter the apartment when something lit up in her head.

\- "Umm…" - She turned to them again, - "The house and store are going to be sold. But if you need a place to stay until...you find a new place to haunt, or whatever you’re going to do, you can stay here while we look for a buyer. In the upper apartment there is a shower, bathroom, beds and blankets if you still use these things."

\- "I'll take the couch!" - Dick said quickly. - "I...like the couch a lot.”

Raven looked at them and shook her head.

\- "This…" - She pointed to the three. - "This is too weird." - And without saying anything else, she turned again and went to the apartment. She needed to tell Clark and Lois that she wanted to go home. Her head was spinning like crazy at that moment and nothing told her that staying there would help in any way to put things that were happening to her in place.

They decided that they would no longer be able to think about reading all those exhausting contracts like that. That the best thing to do was to go home and do it all in the comfort of their office and not on wooden stools on a small counter in a tiny kitchen.

Raven took a shower, letting the hot water fall on her shoulders as she tried to process what had happened. In her heritage, a record store and a small apartment, three ghosts from a band that her mother once helped were living in her apartment. People could really hear them play, even if they didn't see them and that’s all she knew..

It was too much information, she didn't know if she would ever be able to process it. Raven got out of the bath thinking about what she would do in her room and for a brief moment, the thought of asking Donna what to do in that situation seemed too tempting.

_"What would you say if I told you that there are three ghosts in my old apartment?"_

Raven reread the message and instantly gave up on sending it. Donna would think she had gone crazy, just like anyone else. To tell the truth, Raven didn't doubt that she had lost her sanity as well.

It was too unreal that her ghosts existed and she started to think that maybe she was already dreaming.

Raven woke up the next day very early, even before Clark and Lois and tiptoed off. Leaving only a note that she needed to pick up something from the store that she had forgotten and that she was going to school after. She hadn't forgotten anything, but she needed to make sure that she wasn't dreaming and that ghosts really existed.

The taxi driver seemed to find it weird that she was asking for a taxi so early but didn't question it. Raven rewarded him with a good tip when she quickly got out of the car, the heavy sky of Gotham starting to receive the first rays of sunlight.

Raven entered the store slowly, stepping cautiously in places and already hoping that they would take her by surprise at some point. But all she found was the silence and peace of a day dawning in Gotham, and strangely, Angela's perfume.

\- “Boys?” - She dared to call quietly, but got silence for an answer. Her heart heaved in her chest when she thought about the possibility that it hadn't been real. - “Boys?”

 _Absolute silence_.

Raven sighed heavily, almost feeling defeated, when her eyes landed on the music she had left with the bills paid before she had almost been scared to death by the arrival of the three ghosts. Her heart pounded and she found herself walking towards the paper. Remembering that she didn't want to look at what was written on it the day before and before she gave up, Damian's voice rang out in the back of her head reminding her of what she felt when she heard him talk about art with such passion. Looking exactly like Angela had said it.

She reached out with shaking hands and held the music, her heart racing as her fingers closed around the thin white paper. Memories flooding her chest like a January rain.

Raven took a deep breath and with a little magic and a movement with her hand, picked up a guitar without even looking straight and sat on the floor. Supporting it on her lap while placing the music on the floor. The next thing that happened was as natural as Raven remembered. The musical notes slipped from her fingers as her voice gained strength and in the end, she found herself singing again. She found himself putting her love and soul into music again.

She understood what Damian had said about feeling alive again, because that was exactly how she felt when she just allowed herself to sing again and get that pain out. It was as if after a year without rain, a storm would return bringing back to her the life she thought she had lost in those last 365 days.

And Raven felt Angela's presence with her more than ever.

When she finished singing, Raven had tears in her eyes and a smile she didn't even remember she could put on her face again. Her heart felt full again as it hadn't been in a long time and she felt it would overflow. Damian was right. That damn unknown ghost was right, she should never have abandoned it when it was part of her soul. Raven wiped her face with the back of her hands, with a silly smile on her lips as she took the last score to read Angela's note.

_Raven,_

_You can do this, my little shiny star!_

_Mom loves you._


End file.
